Chapter 3: Perception

Question 1

What are 4 characteristics of perception?

Answer 1

1. perception can change based on added information
2. perception can involve a process similar to reasoning or problem solving
3. arriving at perception can involve a process
4. perception occurs in conjunction with action

Question 2

What is the inverse projection problem?

Answer 2

the task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on the retina (you’re inversing the projection on ur retina)

Question 3

What is bottom up processing?

Answer 3

evaluating information based on how it gets from the outside world to our eyes/retina and then to our brains for higher order processing
- focuses on how without sensory information from lower funcitoning areas, we will not be able to make perceptions because objects wont be presented in our brain

Question 4

What is top-down processing?

Answer 4

evalutating information based on how it is put together in the brain
i.e. perception involves factors such as a person’s knowledge of the environment, the expectations people bring to the perceptual situation and their attention to specific stimuli

Question 5

What is recognition by components theory?

Answer 5

• recognition is based on basic shapes called geons and objects are defined by the series of interconnected geons
• recognition of components predicts that recognition is independent of angle view

Question 6

what was the test done to show the viewing styles of individuals towards objects?

Answer 6

they would train people to look at an object by one particular view and then show them different/rotated view of the object…

the results showed that theres strong evidence for viewer-centered representations

Question 7

what is viewer-centered representations?

Answer 7

representations of the object changing with position of the viewer

Question 8

What is the direct pathway model of experiencing pain?

Answer 8

according to this model, pain occurs when receptors in the skin called nociceptors are stimulated and send their signals in a direct pathway from the skin to the brain

Question 9

what has modern research shown about pain perception?

Answer 9

that pain can be influenced by what a person expects, how the person directs his or her attention, and the type of distracting stimuli that are present

Question 10

what are four approaches to object perception?

Answer 10

1. Helmholtz’s Theory of Unconscious Inference
2. Gestalt Principle of organization
3. Regularities of the Environment
4. Bayesian Inference

Question 11

What was helmholtz’s idea on perception in his theory of unconscious inference?

Answer 11

proposed that the image on the retina is ambiguous

Question 12

what is the likelihood principle (helmholtz)

Answer 12

we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we have received

Question 13

What is unconscious inference (helmholtz):?

Answer 13

our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions or inferences that we make about the environment

Question 14

What was the Gestalt principle of organization idea on perception?

Answer 14

the gestalt psychologisits rejected the idea that perceptions were formed by “adding up” sensations. Instead they said elements are grouped together to create larger objects (instead of larger objects being broken down into smaller elements)

Question 15

what is appararent movement (gestalt)?

Answer 15

the principle behind the illusion of movement (wertheimer)

Question 16

what are the 4 conditions of creating apparent movement?

Answer 16

1. one light flashes on and off
2. theres a period of darkness (lasting fraction of a second)
3. second light flashing at a different position
4. resulting in the perception that a light is moving from left to right, the period of darkness between the flashes is perceived as movement

Question 17

what did Werheimer conclude from this apaprent movement experiment (gestalt)? (2)

Answer 17

1. apparent movement cannot be explained by sensations because there is nothing in dark space between the flashing lights (nothing to perceive yet we perceive it as movement)
2. the whole is different than the sum of its parts… the movement as a whole is different than 2 flashes of light

Question 18

What are the 4 principles of gestalt psychology?

Answer 18

1. principle of good ocntinuation: when connected, result in straight or smoothly curving lines are seen as belonging together and the lines tend to be seen in such way as to follow smoothest path. Objects that are overlapped by other objects are perceived as contiunuing behind that overlapping object
2. principle of good figure OR principle of simplicity: every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible
3. principle of similarity: similar things appear to be grouped together

Question 19

“Every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible”

Answer 19

principle of simplicity/ or good figure

Question 20

What are regularities in the environment?

Answer 20

characteristics of the environment that occur frequently. Regularities in the environment provide infromation we can use to resolve uncertainty…

Question 21

what are two types of regularities?

Answer 21

1. physical

2. semantic

Question 22

what are physical regularities?

Answer 22

regularly occuring physical properties of the environment

Question 23

what is the light from above assumption?

Answer 23

we usually assume that light is coming from above because in our natural envioronment, light is coming from the sun and aritifical light also comes from above

Question 24

what are semantic regularities?

Answer 24

the characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes

Question 25

what is scene schema?

Answer 25

knoweldge of what a given scene typically contains

Question 26

What is the bayesian inference?

Answer 26

our estimate of the probability of an outcome is determined by two factors:

1) the prior probability (our initial belief about the probability)
2) the extent to which the available evidence is consistent with the outcome (called likelihood)

Question 27

Compare the four approaches to perception

Answer 27

helmholtz, regularities of environment and bayes all have in common the idea that we use data about the environment, gathered through our past experiences in perceiving to determine what is out there… so they support Top-down processing

gestalt psychology, emphasizes the idea that the principles of organization are built in
- they acknowledge that perception is affected by experience, but argued that built-in principles can override experience and therefore support bottom-up processing

Question 28

What two tasks did Ungerleider and Mishkin present to the monkeys?

Answer 28

1. object discrimination problem

2. landmark discrimination problem

Question 29

What was the object discrimination problem that undergleider and mishkin presented to the monkeys?

Answer 29

monkey had to pick out the target object from novel object and push it aside to get food reward

Question 30

What was the land discrimination problem that undergleider and mishkin presented to the monkeys?

Answer 30

the monkey received food if it removed the food well cover CLOSEST to the target

Question 31

What is the perception pathway?

Answer 31

pathway from visual cortex to temporal lobe (ventral stream)

Question 32

what is the action pathway?

Answer 32

pathway from the visual cortex to the parietal lobe (dorsal stream)